Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
It will be hard. Europe is buying a lot of gas from Russia. However I think that Putin is betting that Germany/EU don't have the guts to cut off Russia gas.
High stakes game
Wouldn't banning Russian citizens to EU be a good thing for Putin though, because that means Russians wouldn't be able to migrate to another country, unless they somehow revoke their citizenship.
And didn't they already seized Russia's currency reserve in their country? Even if Russia backed off, they still wouldn't get their currency reserves back.
They are already sending weapons to Ukraine either way and planning to do more regardless.
How about gas though..
"GERMAN CHANCELLOR SCHOLZ - WE CAN STOP BUYING OIL AND COAL FROM RUSSIA THIS YEAR"
"GERMAN CHANCELLOR SCHOLZ - WE CAN STOP BUYING OIL AND COAL FROM RUSSIA THIS YEAR"
In poker terms, Russia is calling EU's bluff. As in poker, there is no sure thing unless one holds absolute nuts, which is not the case 99% of time. So at the current stage, let's call it "turn" (4th street), I guess Russia has better odds of winning this gas war against Germany. All Germans should send a "thank you" note to Angela Merkel, because good days are over. I am crossing my fingers and waiting to see if one day BBA is dethroned by Tesla/BYD/NIO/Xpeng/Li EV cohorts.
Merkel was dismissed by a lot of people in Europe and Germany for her "boring" leadership (economically stealthily colonised the EU but whatever..) and the moment she stepped down and that guy with the CIA agents took over, they have made a huge disaster over everything.
This curse is applicable to Germans today:
"May you live in interesting times"
She was smart enough to straddle the line with Russia, now EU leaders seems to all subordinate to Washington. They're all happy to further US's geopolitical gambit at the cost of EU's interest.... really curious how US managed it
Remains to be seen. Probably why the EU didn't do it first. Could just be virtue signaling internally for either sides.
Freezing the currency reserves is not the same thing as actual seizing the lot.
EU can do a lot worse (and more stupid too) than the current level of support to Ukraine.
No-fly zones, heavy armament, air planes ect. Even direct intervention.
Bascially a lot of escalating stuff demanding a Russian counterresponse.
freezing + sanctions is functionally no different than seizing.
no fly zone = air to air combat with Russian air force and air defenses. Does EU have the capability for that sort of high intensity warfare?
heavy armament = needs to get to the troops. does EU have the capability to move it not only to Ukraine, but to the parts of Ukraine where the fighting is?
airplanes = has to be something Ukrainians are trained on, so Mig-29s only. That was already rejected.
EU has already taken all the long hanging fruit, the only ones left are the bitter and high ones.